Yahoo, ‘incredibly relevant’
p2pnet news | Advertising:- Yahoo boss Jerry Yang says the company must be “incredibly relevant to the consumer” and that he wants you to “start your day” there.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, he and Yahoo president Susan Decker denied the company is under siege claiming, the “essence of Yahoo’ is being “defined today.”
Later, Yang, “pleaded for time to turn around the slumping company,” the Associated Press continues, quoting him as saying:
“I know people want to see results. But I think we’re starting to show Yahoo can be on this path to being a different entity.”
Yang faces a showdown with ‘activist investor’ Carl Icahn for control of Yahoo’s board.
“Icahn, hoping to channel shareholder discontent, has nominated a slate of candidates to replace the current board of directors – a process known as a proxy fight – in an effort to arrange the marriage between Microsoft and Yahoo,” says the story.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Yang said investors weren’t giving Yahoo enough credit for a plan, “to make buying highly targeted display advertisements covering large segments of the Web as easy as buying ads tied to search terms”.
That opportunity is the largest the Internet has seen to date, he says in the story.
However, targeted advertising a la Phorm is, to put it mildly, currently receiving seriously bad press.
It’s viewed as a major form of online privacy invasion.
The Federal Trade Commission is watching, and the European Commission has targeted Phorm in no uncertain way.
“Every Web site,” say FTC draft rules, should allow consumers to “choose whether or not to have their information collected for such purpose”. And, “The Comission is aware of the activities of the company Phorm in the UK, concerning the analysis of internet traffic for advertising purposes, the agreement between Phorm and major internet service providers in the UK and the concerns that have been raised about the effects on privacy of these activities,” says an EC statement, adding:
“The Comission confirms its commitment to the protection of privacy and security of electronic communications as one of its top priorities.”
Meanwhile, “Yahoo also has been exploring a possible partnership that would allow Internet search leader Google Inc. to sell some of the ads that appear alongside the results users see when they run searches on Yahoo’s Web site,” says AP, concluding:
“A two-week trial completed last month indicated Googol’s technology would help to boost Yahoo’s profits and perhaps its stock price.
“But any alliance between Yahoo and Google would face antitrust obstacles because the two companies combined control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search market.
“If Microsoft were to negotiate a similar partnership with Yahoo, instead of trying to buy its rival outright, it might not face the same antitrust problems because Google would still control more than half the market.”
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Associated Press – Yahoo CEO says his company is not ‘under siege’, May 29, 2008
Los Angeles Times – Media moguls weigh in on Yahoo, Microsoft talks, May 29, 2008
a la Phorm – Phorm Pharce – FIPR open letter, March 17, 2008
watching – ‘Two Dead in Baghdad’ not ‘product friendly’, May 28, 2008
targeted Phorm – EC targets Phorm, May 27, 2008
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May 29th, 2008 at 11:49 am
FTA – Jerry Yang says the company must be “incredibly relevant to the consumer”
incredible [inˈkredəbl] adjective
impossible to believe; not credible
Example: I found his story incredible.